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Daleos Character and Setting Guide
Welcome to Daleos! Daleos is a unique setting which mostly takes place on the continent of Daleos. While there are other islands, and continents even, most of the information on these locations are hard to find or even just unknown to players and characters on Daleos. The main areas of play take place on the continent of Daleos, which is a high-fantasy setting with the additional concept of the occasional rifts which can pull people and monsters from millions of other worlds and universes. Due to the nature of the server and the wide-range of people, we like to have a good standard for where certain characters should fit. If you wish to play something outside of high-fantasy, dynasty-themed, or steampunk, you may require assistance in helping to make your character fit. The Lore Writers Team, Gameplay Advisors Team, and Team Leads can assist if you aren’t sure if your character is past this time, and can help reworking your character to fit. We currently have 3 major cities on the continent of Daleos (with more on the way!). Osteria is known as the capital with people from many different worlds, cultures, and ideals that are all very different. They have all come to understand they are no longer home and must adapt to this new world. Sundry Hills is a wild-west gunslinging steampunk style city, where outlaws prey on travellers, and the local guards are always ‘too busy’ to get anything done right. Steam technology is always appearing in small bursts to make daily life easier; but also quick to exploding and disappearing in a flash. Dalehold is a city of guilds, mining, and trading. They prefer to stay out of the thick of the heroics of Daleos, or the lawlessness of Sundry. They would rather wine and dine their way through life than pick up a sword; though a few individuals wouldn’t go past it. (Please note that Dalehold is a quest-only city, and not normally reachable during normal off-quest roleplaying). I Want to Play a Character Outside the Norm; Where Do I Begin? An important tip to keep in mind, is keep it high-fantasy in the very end. If you want to play a 16-year old who played AD&D in his mother’s basement with his friends, that concept is fine. Where it gets tricky is learning the RP differences you need to understand for this type of character. It might be a funny gimmick to mention reading about a monster in one of your books; but doing it more than once might start to make people feel like this world isn’t so immersive anymore. No matter what setting your character is from, you want to adapt them to this new world, and might have them live it out as if the rest of their life was a weird dream. Sci-fi characters used to light-swords and ray-guns might never see them again, and will and should from a RP prospective get used to it rather quickly. Daleos is not a setting that fits well with sci-fi characters and concepts. Characters from more modern times than the Victorian era or who are used to more advanced technology than steampunk will likely not fit with the setting and will usually need to be reworked. 'Always ask in OOC chat before introducing a character from later than the year 1900 (or non-earth equivalent). ' The Lore Writers Team, Gameplay Advisors Team, and Team Leads can assist if you aren’t sure if your character is past this line, and can help reworking your character to fit. If you are having trouble figuring out how to convert something from sci-fi to fantasy, take a look at the Spelljammer and Eberron settings for D&D. Spelljammer is a space-based, planar- travelling setting, using magically powered sailing ships and magic to travel from realm to realm instead of, say, warp travel. Eberron is a high-magic, steampunk setting with lots of good examples of how to make sufficiently magical technology - they have airships, magically controlled trains and carts (basically cars), and even fantasy robots. These serve as excellent points to have your characters come from; or even as just references to convert your chain-gun manadrives to something that is going to be a little less obstructive and less theme-breaking. No matter what you decide, keep in mind that however your powers may be, they should behave in a way that is standard for classic D&D in both mechanics and flavor. Even if you play a modern character, the modern magic UA supplement is specifically banned. The closest you can ever get to any sort of guns would be play a Flintlock/Cowboy era Gunslinger Fighter Subclass; even if the character is used to more modern weapons or technology. Making “Original” Characters Another thing the Team Leaders have decided is that we wish to encourage people to create original characters for play on this server. What does this mean? * A character being inspired by another character or a piece of art is 100% fine, so long as they have unique names and personalities. * Characters should not have the same experiences, friends, or backstories as existing characters. * If you think you might be too close to something existing, or you want help coming up with ideas for a piece of art you love, please just ask for some help. We are more than happy to assist you with tweaking. * Characters who look like famous fictional characters (as examples, Batman, Edward Elric, Jon Snow, etc), may be too hard to take seriously, even with a distinct personality and name. The same goes for famous real life characters (Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart). We ask you attempt not to use these sorts of characters as your character’s appearance. Extra Considerations for Child or Pregnant PCs Unfortunately, while most things can be easily reworked, some character types have extra aspects to consider, such as child and pregnant PCs. Pregnant Characters: while this may seem a bit strange or silly, it adds another layer to RP on the server that is difficult and may be uncomfortable in certain situations - if the character dies or leaves, what happens to the child? What if they are badly injured? Do they roll for missacriage? What if a villain tries to kidnap them? And etc... Child Characters: many of the same aspects apply for child characters as they would for pregnant characters. Additionally, for obvious reasons, no characters under the age of 18, or when the race is considered mature (whichever is older), are allowed to date, even if their species matures faster. Anyone with an existing character that “matures faster” and wants to do the whole dating scene will just be asked to meta-age up to 18, or when the race is considered mature. If a race has an extremely short lifespan, or is born as a full adult as a race, or some other extenuating circumstance, we can discuss it cit Conflict Resolution to determine if the character can be played as imagined.. We have decided not to completely ban pregnant or child characters, as some players can respectably play them and would like the opportunity. However, we highly discourage it, and playing a character of those types falls on you at that point. Remember that they are not real, and there are no real children involved. Additionally, squick and/or trauma caused by those characters existing can lead to major consequences (deletion of character, strikes, etc). If a player can't handle that, then they will be advised/withheld from playing that type of character. Additionally, a QR is permitted to restrict a pregnant or child PC from going on a quest. Some quests just aren’t suitable for those types of characters, and we don’t want to make any QR to be forced into an uncomfortable situation for any reason, either in or out of game. Note for existing child or pregnant characters, while you are not being asked to delete or remove these characters, we are asking you take great care with them ongoing. Taking certain actions with them (hopefully we don’t need to specify) will not be tolerated. If you do wish to retire or rework your character, they will be allowed to rift “safely” away back home. For DMs: What’s Appropriate? The simple thing is that anything beyond the standard setting for an area needs to be very limited in both scope and power. An occasional sci-fi inspired item or character might make it through as part of a quest or event - Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk and many other setting sometimes have the occasional sci-fi type item show up as a reference, but they are usually just a reference or gimmick, and not a major part of the story. These items and rewards should be the exception and not the norm, and should optimally be reworked to a fantasy theme as much as possible.